Nature Wallpaper: Through a Rain-Smeared Window

Another brief squall, just as the sun breaks through…

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: En Route to a Bami Goreng

Nature Wallpaper: Remnant of Summer

The drought of 2022 in the UK effected the natural world in several ways – all of them negatively. But when a cold snap followed it’s watery ending, and subsequent seasonal temperatures soared shortly afterwards, the natural world was thrown out of kilter. For some plants, it appeared that summer had returned. For others the period called winter was skipped, and they went straight to Spring again. All very colourful for those who took the time to look. Who knows what will become of the Primroses etc when winter finally arrives – not to mention dumb-ass hedgehogs. It probably won’t go well for them. Here ‘s a shot of high-summer Clover in Autumn, which was lovely to see amongst all the dry brown hedgerow foliage and fresh green shoots emerging from the desiccated grasses at the field’s edge…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Wallpaper 645: Sudden Cessation of Autumn’s Calm

Out of nowhere…

If nothing else, British weather is unpredictable – especially when, like me, you live in a valley and can’t see it coming.

Wallpaper 644: Sail Before Steam

That’s one of the rules of the sea. Fine in concept: difficult to administer.

 

Wallpaper 643: Automotive Autumn 2

You didn’t expect me to take only one Automotive Autumn picture, did you? When conditions are this good, it would be a crime to put the camera away,

Wallpaper 642: Automotive Autumn

Me and my juxtapositioning again. Neat, right?

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: Floating Spices

Sprinkled into a rice cooker, Tooty the Chef thought these spices looked quite artistic…

But then he would, wouldn’t he? Big over-blown twit!

Earplug Adventure Wallpaper: A Clandestine Midnight Coffee Perhaps?

Discovering a carelessly unlocked branch of the Cafe Puke, whilst out and about enjoying a night stroll through the residential area of the Museum of Future Technology, Edith and Ferdinand Arcwelder question their morals when tempted by the possibility of a freebie mug of ghastly coffee.

Yes, in answer to the more eagle-eyed amongst you, that isn’t the original Cafe Puke set. It’s another one entirely – complete with disco glitter ball!

Earplug Adventures © Paul Trevor Nolan

 

Wallpaper 641: Weather In-Bound

I had the dogs with me. Neither have any sense of urgency. We made it home in the nick of time.

Wallpaper 640: Greeting September’s Last Sunrise

The Christmas Chainsaw Massacre

For uncounted eons my wife and I would bake and decorate a cake for Christmas. The cake was always nice because she baked it. The decoration was always humorously terrible because I was the major contributor. In her final couple of years she gave up the baking, so we bought a cake instead, which we decorated in the usual manner – that being ineptly. It always caused a giggle, and we always gave it a title too. Whilst browsing through the quadrillion-or-so photos on my computer I chanced upon this one. From 2016: a rather macabre Christmas cake. The Christmas Chainsaw Massacre. I’ve not seen Santa in the same light since.

Does it make a nice Christmas wallpaper though? I’d like to think so.

Cyber-Soylent Green

I’m sure, when the I.T staff member responsible for placing these obsolete monitors out for collection by a recycling company did so…

…he or she didn’t notice the scene’s similarity to the 1970’s film, Soylent Green. In an over-populated world, the elderly were required to willfully submit themselves to euthanasia, eventually to be repurposed as biscuits or varying hues for the hungry masses. It was called Soylent, and the remains of Edward G Robinson’s character was designated Soylent Green, which didn’t please Charlton Heston one little bit! If you have a silly imagination like me, this is a rather sad photo. Look at them: they’re not complaining or trying to escape. They just wait there to be collected before being torn asunder and reduced to their constituent parts. Or is just me?

P.S This was taken a few years ago. Since then the entire building has been repurposed. Nothing in the picture has survived. It is now part of a housing estate. And that really is sad because it never needed to happen. Just a very bad decision made at board level caused it. It still rankles with me: I loved the place.

Nature Wallpaper: Weeks Into the Drought

The fields near where I live suffered during the Summer of 2022. They also made a pleasant, if slightly abnormal wallpaper…

Here’s how it might appear on your computer…

And just to show you the lengths I’m willing to go to in order to serve up these wonders of nature – regard what a loop of vicious bramble did to me as I went about my country business, snapping nice pictures to share with all…

My ankle was like that all the way around. I hate bastard brambles!

Gallic Style Wallpapers

Interior automotive design of the early 1960s…

Almost art deco, don’t you think?

But then look at the exterior design…

Could that be anything but French in origin? I don’t think so. Check out the wraparound windshield. It’s a Simca Aronde by the way. Would I like one? Silly question. Now which testicle am I willing to sacrifice?

Double Nature Wallpapers: Warm Quince & Quince in the Rain

These photos were taken just minutes apart on a particularly showery day.

Earplug Adventures Wallpaper: Self Destruct!

Submarine Space Freighters are usually very reliable vessels: but sometimes their crews must take desperate measures to win the day.

I’m not saying that this shot will appear in an Earplug Adventure: but I wouldn’t bet against it.

Q: Did this single picture take hours to produce?

A: Too bloody right it did. Thank goodness I’m retired, and have the time to waste. Or is it waste? Is art ever wasteful?

Earplug Adventure Wallpaper: Hot Pursuit

Perhaps Magnuss and Hair-Trigger should have listened when they were warned against entering the alien planet’s atmosphere…

Here is how it might appear on your laptop etc…

Summer Wallpaper: Dusty Dusk

Rural Wallpaper: Kings of the Castle

A herd of young cattle were released into a field that had lain fallow for two years. Four cows made for a pile of soil that had been dumped there. Who knows why. Maybe to see over the hedge? Or did they have loftier ambitions? Kings of the castle…

 

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: Four Principal Ingredients + Salsa!

Nature Wallpaper: State of Alert

PS. I awoke to discover that this had become another ‘hit’ for me on Flickr. Obviously I was pleased.

Rural Wallpaper: Kicking Up the Dust

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: Armario Rústico

Not all that a chef requires to produce culinery masterpeices perhaps, but my rustic cupboard is a good place to start…

From left to right. Top row: flaked rice, lemon peel powder, chopped figs, couscous, italian mixed herbs, black chocolate. Bottom row: brown basmati rice, dried onion, egg noodles, brandy, pasta, white basmati rice (twice).

P.S the brandy is for medicinal purposes – making cafe cortado!

Nature Wallpaper: Sharing

Before I share my ‘Sharing’ wallpaper with you, please allow me to share the following image with you…

I suffer for my art, you know. Despite the fields and paths of rural England appearing benificent, don’t be fooled. For all the waving grasses and spirited swathes of clover, there are always brambles laying in wait amongst them for unwary picture-snappers like me. Bastards.

So, anyway, on to the subject of this post. I put this picture up on my Flickr page. In the first 36 hours it received about a hundred hits and a couple of ‘faves’.  Then, whilst I slept blissfuly, trying to ignore my itching shins, the picture went ape-shit. By the time I posted this version of the picture here, the original had already gained over 3700 hits and a hundred ‘faves’. Someone likes it. I hope you do. It is quite nice…

 

Scroton News Report: No Coffee At The Cafe Puke!

Scroton’s first (and only) leader – Nigel, the Golden One – has discovered the penthouse Cafe Puke outlet in the Museum of Future Technology abandoned utterly…

“There wasn’t even one of those satchets that you add boiling water to left.” Nigel was heard to complain. “Or a bucket under the sink. Even the tables were gone. It’s as if everyone fled, and took everything with them… Yes – including the toilet tissue!”

 

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: Lasagne!

The secret of his success? Heavy on the Mozzarella!

A ‘It Features in My Book’ Wallpaper: Fictional Village of Brambledown

When I posted the first ‘It Features in My Book’ Wallpaper, I hadn’t planned to produce a sequel – of sorts; but nosing through my collection of digital photos, I found more that feature locations (from my recollections during childhood) that inspired scenes in this book…

Here is a shot that includes a part of the fictional village of Brambledown…

…which I thought made a nice wallpaper. But whilst I was bending myself to the task, I fiddled with a shot that features a location that is included in a specific scene from the book, which I present here as an extract. The locale has changed considerably since the sixties (the period from which I drew my imagery); but the general lie of the land remains pretty much as it was. The sunken lane highlighted here, featured in the first post.

An extract from Silent Apocalypse…

Since I was not present, the following part of this narrative must be second hand. It was related to me at a later date.

Night had fallen. Four teenaged girls, one of whom was Katherine Kingsbury – sister to Tom, and school friend of mine – huddled together in a thicket that grew upon the hillside that overlooked the village. They’d been abducted during the Wiltshire Rifles’ first foray into Brambledown. They rejoiced in the fact that they’d not been joined by others, but were greatly concerned about the villager’s welfare. As of yet they were unhurt and unsullied. None of them imagined the situation would remain that way forever. Katherine, bound at hand and foot, stared at the one young Rifleman left to guard them. What she hoped to accomplish she didn’t know, but if it made him feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable, then it was worth the effort. And she was pretty certain she was having some effect. Eventually he turned angrily toward her.

“Will you stop that?” He snapped.

“Will you set me free?” She returned his outburst.

He took a step toward her. “I’ll tell you what I will do…”

“Rifleman!” The voice of the Lance Corporal erupted from the surrounding shadows, “Remain at your post.”

The Rifleman threw Katherine a glance of menace, and resumed his watching of the village through the thicket. He spoke to the Lance Corporal, who had come to check the girl’s condition:

“Any chance of action tonight, Corp?”

The Lance Corporal glanced at the girl’s bonds before returning his attention to the Rifleman. “For you – or the unit in general?”

“Both.”

“No – and yes – in that order.”

The Rifleman’s whining voice betrayed his youth: “Oh, but Corp, I missed out last night too.”

The Lance Corporal was unmoved. “Tough. Shouldn’t be such a prat then, should you? Tell you what: next time we need a complete louse-up, we’ll call for you. Now shut up and keep your eyes peeled.”

“Thanks very much.” The Rifleman managed. “So we’re going in again tonight?”

The Lance Corporal was already departing. “If my plan’s gonna succeed, we have to. We have to keep ‘going in’ until there’s either no womenfolk left in the village, or we’re all dead. Whichever way it turns out, we are not leaving here empty handed. You got that?”

Katherine heard these words, and shuddered.

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2014

As far as I know, this e-book remains available at several outlets, some of which are included on the sidebar via the book cover images, or on the Tooty’s E-Books Available To Buy Here page. And very nice it is too – if you enjoy genocide and disaster.

Alternative Reality Wallpaper: Tooty Catches Some Rays Upon Rigel 4

I used Factor Zero protection, and still couldn’t get a tan. The terrible light meant that the book was hard to read as well. And the chair kept sinking into the sand, coz of the extra gravity. I came home pale and knackered.

Chopping Board Wallpaper: Ingredients: Wet ‘n’ Dry

Rural Wallpaper: Bovine Idyll

Tooty the Chef Wallpaper: Not Just Another Stir-Fry

A healthy one!

Alternative Reality Art: Return to the Mothership

After laying waste to Brighton and Hove Albion’s football stadium, the soccer-hating aliens move out to sea…

…for some breakfast and a welcome visit to the lavatory. It’s a long way from the English Channel to the South Pacific!

Alternative Reality Art: Thames Departure

After leaving distant London a flaming ruin, alien attack craft depart via the River Thames…

…en route to a rendevouz with the Brighton and Hove Albion football stadium in Sussex. Aliens don’t like soccer. And they really hate English seaside towns.

Rural Wallpaper: Sunset Daisies